by Jaine Fenn
The weather stayed dry and warm for the final days leading up to star-season, though mist cloaked the land in the mornings and the afternoon sky was often filled with racing grey-tinged clouds. Every clear night she would catch sight of the silver streaks of falling stars. Occasionally a larger flaming trail would hang overhead before fading.
Their track became a stone-paved road running through rolling chalk downs. Trees overhung the road, green with new leaves and sprinkled with pungent off-white flowers. Their route was busy and smaller parties often had to move aside to make way for the drove.
One day they passed a cart accompanied by men in smart blue coats carrying small, intricate-looking tools that Huw said were weapons - the men were monitors, the church’s warrior-guards, and the strong-box on their cart likely contained money: tithes for the church.
The whole land was cultivated now, either given over to fields of crops, or grazed by large brown cattle. (‘They give good milk,’ said Huw with a herdsman’s eye, ‘but their meat is tasteless and fatty.’) Kerin marvelled at seeing nature so thoroughly tamed.
The drove usually arrived before star-season, but the delays meant the Sul service marking the start of the festival had to be held outside Plas Aethnen. The next day an air of anxious anticipation hung over the drovers: they had had a long, hard journey, and had lost friends to reivers and the falling fire. Now they wanted the reward at journey’s end.
They reached Plas Aethnen late that afternoon, the first day of star-season itself. The great manor house looked out over a sprawl of buildings extending down to a meandering river. Kerin tried counting the buildings, then gave up. The stone-built houses had two storeys and high-peaked roofs of red tiles; even the lowliest dwelling in Plas Aethnen looked to be as large as the moot-hall back in Dangwern. Now she understood the lowlanders’ contempt for uplanders who lived in huts of brushwood and mud - and yet she could not help being born in the mountains, and it had not made her less able to think, or learn, or be useful.
On this side of the river, a massive tree-edged meadow enclosed on three sides by one of the river’s loops was covered in tents and awnings and animal pens: the star-season fair, a temporary village devoted to trade and pleasure. Kerin was torn: part of her was eager to sample the new experiences; the other part felt unsure, worried that the combination of the lawlessness of star-season and her own ignorance might get her into trouble.
While the drove leaders went in to find the stockmen to take charge of the beasts the carts were unloaded and people reclaimed their trade goods. Kerin had decided to keep back her favourite skirt to wear for the fair and in the City; she suspected she might get a better price for it in the City afterwards. She added the left-over scraps from Sais’s shirt to her woven items.
Sais came up as she sat next to her pile of possessions. ‘I’m going with Einon now,’ he said.
‘Aye,’ she said, more curtly than she had intended.
‘We’re here for six days, so I should be free to join you in a couple of days, depending on how things go with Einon.’
‘As you wish.’
‘You make sure you have fun, all right?’
‘I am sure I will. Good luck.’ She made herself look away from his departing back.
With the sun long-set and fires and lanterns springing up around the meadow, word came that animal pens and camping space had been allocated. As the last to arrive they were relegated to the marshy ground near the river. The men were eager to finish pitching camp so they could get down to the serious business of partying, and Damaru caught their restless mood. She sat with him, talking to distract him from the hectic anticipation of the camp - and to distract herself. Before they left this place, she felt sure decisions would be taken that would set the course of the rest of her life.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As he walked through the crowded streets of Plas Aethnen - the first place he’d seen deserving of the name ‘town’ - Sais couldn’t help feeling he was abandoning Kerin. Not that she couldn’t look after herself, of course - he was amazed at how well-balanced she was, given all the crap she’d been through. Still, she was his best friend; he felt like he’d known her all his life.
In some ways, he had. And that was the problem.
Though he was getting better at interacting with the world - or at least better at faking it well enough not to upset people - he still had no idea who he was, or where he’d come from, or how he’d ended up here. His decision to carry on to Dinas Emrys was mostly down to the nagging sense of familiarity about Einon’s lantern, which came from the City of Light; it gave him hope that he might find some answers there.
When they reached the Reeve’s manor Einon became almost embarrassingly solicitous, requesting rooms for ‘my guest’, and offering to lend Sais money. ‘You will not need anything while we are under the Reeve’s roof,’ he said, ‘but on the road to the City of Light we shall be staying at inns. You can pay me back later.’
Sais had been wondering about money, as presumably not everyone lived by trading cows and skirts. He had no choice but to accept Einon’s offer of a loan, though it put him further in the priest’s power - as would attempting the Cof Hlesmair technique again. The priestly ability to spot lies made him uncomfortable. He had an idea that kind of thing wasn’t normal where he came from. And that belief was one more indication that his home was nothing like this place. Even the sky was wrong here. And as for the Skymothers . . . how would a priest react to finding that the gods he worshipped meant nothing to Sais? He might be able to choose his words carefully when they chatted together, but would he be able to edit his responses when he was in a trance?
He was introduced to the Reeve, the cleanest, fattest person he’d seen so far, then shown to a room containing the sort of soft furnishings he’d been fantasising about for the last few weeks. Before worrying about anything else, he would just spend a day or two enjoying being dry and well-fed and clean.
He rang for a servant and asked for a bath and hot water to be sent up. While he waited, he took off his socks for the first time in weeks. His blisters had hardened to black calluses, making his feet look unfamiliar. He felt giddy. What made these ugly, rough appendages his? What made the memories that assaulted him his? What made him the person he was, other than a desire to re-learn who he had once been?
A goblet of wine and a long soak in a wooden tub of warm, scented water put things into perspective. He got out of the bath to find clothes laid out on the cushion-covered bed. The tight-fitting russet-brown leggings and sleeveless top were a little small, unlike the voluminous cream shirt, which needed constant tucking and adjusting. But the clothes were clean and smart enough that he didn’t look too out of place amongst the Reeve’s other guests.
The price for the Reeve’s hospitality was to add interest to the festivities. While Einon kept largely to his rooms, Sais was expected to attend all of the long formal meals and associated entertainments, and to mingle with the other guests, all over-fed, overdressed and over-full of their own importance. His initial concern about making mistakes proved unfounded: word of his situation had got around and they treated him as a novelty, laughing at his odd accent, and asking him - repeatedly - if he really could remember nothing at all before he woke up in what one jowly gent described as that nameless little cluster of mud huts. Though he did his best to be polite, he missed the earthy honesty of the drovers. Despite the material comforts of the manor, he was tempted to head back down into the market.
But then he’d be running away from a chance to get his past back. Though he was always on the look-out for clues, he was also in denial; most of the time he didn’t let himself think about the terrifying possibility that he might never recover his memory. Einon’s offer was risky, both because of the likelihood of stirring up his nightmares, and for the chance he might inadvertently tell Einon something the priest would find unacceptable. But the alternative was to spend the rest of his life in a world he knew he didn’t belong in, reliant on ot
hers’ charity.
Civilisation at last. Even more than the prospect of getting clean, eating properly and sleeping in a decent bed, the chance to resume his studies lifted Einon’s heart. Walking past the cattle pens on his way to the manor, he saw the loops of tally ropes and felt a tingle of anticipation. The hollow circles, meaning nothing and everything, recalled the entrancing possibilities for counting and calculation opened up by his discoveries.
His rooms were well-appointed and the Reeve, honoured at having a Tyr priest staying at his manor, was happy to supply him with parchment and ink.
Only one thing was missing. Einon had expected to find a letter from his Escori waiting at Plas Aethnen, instructing him, he hoped, to return to Dinas Emrys now he had brought the drove safely in. Though it mattered less now - the skyfool gave him reason enough to travel to the City of Light - Einon was desperate to know what was going on in the Tyr, and how it might affect him and his Escori. That Urien had failed to send word implied the situation - whatever it was - had worsened.
Two other matters further distracted him from his work. One was Sais. The man was a puzzle he felt compelled to solve, but he sensed a deep reticence in him. The other problem reared its head when, after dinner on the first night, Einon watched Sais politely but firmly refuse an invitation to dance a galliard with a painted maiden. Sais seemed to hold a particular appeal for the women at the Reeve’s court, something he appeared largely oblivious of. As he watched the girl sway her way off to find a more receptive partner, Einon felt the unexpected warmth of bodily desire. Such base distractions were an annoyance, easily solved in the Tyr by a visit to the Putain Glan. Here they were a complication he did not have time for.
He had his chance to address one of his problems the next day. A knock at the door made him jump and smudge his workings. The continued lack of any message from Urien was telling on his nerves.
‘Who is it?’ he called.
‘It’s me, Sais.’
Einon got up and went through to the reception room. He opened the door. ‘What can I do for you?’ He would happily put his work aside for a while if the amnesiac had finally decided to accept the offer of another Cof Hlesmair session.
‘I was wondering about the arrangements for travelling on to the City of Light,’ said Sais.
‘As I said, we will, ah, be staying in inns.’ Why was Sais asking him this now?
‘All of us? Kerin too?’
‘Kerin?’
‘I’d assumed she would come with us. To look after Damaru.’
Einon had assumed no such thing. ‘Fychan is the boy’s appointed guardian.’
‘Of course. It’s just Damaru is so much calmer when she’s around. And,’ Sais smiled, ‘I feel a lot more relaxed when I’ve got her to look after me.’
The woman showed an alarming lack of respect, but the men she travelled with appeared to value her company. In truth Einon had given very little thought to her fate once the skyfool’s party left the drove behind. ‘I suppose she could come with us,’ he said grudgingly. ‘She will, ah, have to make her own arrangements, of course.’
‘I’m sure she’s expecting to.’
When Sais did not immediately turn to go, Einon said, ‘Was there something else, Chilwar?’
Sais considered for a moment, then said, ‘I was thinking I might be ready to give your trance technique another go.’
‘Excellent! Come through and sit down.’
They sat as they had before, though this time far more comfortably. Sais’s eyes had already begun to close by the time Einon reached a count of four. He paused after reaching ten, praying silently that Sais’s eyes would remain shut. They did.
Einon said, ‘The door is opening before you, and you are going inside.’ He saw Sais’s eyelids flicker: a result! He had achieved the state of Cof Hlesmair.
‘You are somewhere safe now,’ he said gently, ‘somewhere you know well. It is the first place you remember feeling comfortable and at home. Have a good look around. This place is known to you; you merely need to re-acquaint yourself with it.’ He could see by Sais’s face that it was working; that he was walking through old, perhaps lost, memories. He wondered what Sais saw. He carried on talking in a low, calm voice, telling him to touch things, pick them up, examine them in his mind’s eye. He would have liked to expand the memory, maybe move it on, but he could feel the damage in Sais’s mind; they must take it slowly.
He counted down to bring Sais back and waited while he reoriented himself. Finally his impatience overcame him and he asked, ‘So, what do you recall?’
‘I - I’m not sure,’ Sais said, uncertainly.
‘But it worked?’
‘I think so. I just feel . . . a bit odd.’
Cof Hlesmair sometimes left the subject a little confused. Einon put out a hand, not wanting him to leave without revealing something of what he had seen. ‘You should rest a while. I will fetch you a drink.’
Einon had wine left from lunch. He went into the reception room, where he had put the tray, and had just picked up the flagon when someone knocked on the door. He walked over and opened it, ready to tell the man to return for the tray later, but rather than a servant in the Reeve’s red and green livery, the person on the threshold wore travel-stained midnight blue, and he had one arm in a makeshift sling. He gave a small bow, then said, ‘Would you be Einon am Plas Rhydau?’
‘Aye, that is me.’
‘I have a message for you from Escori Urien. May I come in?’
Einon stepped back to let the monitor enter, closing the door behind him.
The man reached inside his jacket. ‘I must apologise for the delay: I had some trouble on the road.’ He proffered a letter, and Einon took it eagerly.
‘I was instructed to await your reply.’
‘Ah, I see.’ So it was urgent news. Einon broke the seal, which showed the pinnacle and five stars of the Tyr. He recognised Urien’s neat, precise handwriting and began to read.
Far from being clear orders on what Einon was to do next, the letter was full of trivial news: accounts of the preparations for Sul Esgyniad, observations on new acolytes, even comments on the weather. Confused, he raised his head from what appeared at first sight to be a shocking waste of both paper and the monitor’s time.
A line of pain clamped itself across his throat, cutting off his breath. He tried to cry out, but managed only a faint burble. Even as he raised his hands to claw at his throat, he wondered why the monitor was not rushing to save him.
The constriction tightened as his attacker pulled him closer, into a lethal embrace. He smelled dust and sweat. He stopped trying to get his fingers under the cord across his throat and instead elbowed his assailant as hard as he could. He was rewarded with a faint ‘whoomph’ of surprise, but the grip did not slacken.
A deep hum grew to fill his head and darkness began to creep in at the edges of his vision—
Suddenly he was shoved forward into the table. The carved edge caught him on the hip, momentarily distracting him from the pain around his throat. He staggered back, aware that - thank the Mothers! - he was no longer being strangled. He took a deep, rasping breath and put a hand to his neck, where he felt a thin line imprinted across it, but no blood.
As sense returned he realised he was hearing sounds of a struggle. Someone grunted near his feet. When he looked down he saw Sais and the monitor fighting on the floor; it looked like the monitor had got the upper hand, for he was pinning Sais down with his body.
Einon’s mind tried to make sense of what he was seeing. One of these two men had just tried to kill him—
The monitor got a hand free and reached for his belt. Einon saw the knotted thong still wound round his fist: a garrotte, the ultimate solution to the more extreme disputes in the Tyr.
Einon looked round for a weapon. The heavy earthenware flagon had fallen over and spilled wine across the table, but it had not broken. Einon snatched it up as the monitor drew his dagger and with the unnatural strength of the
deeply terrified he smashed the flagon over the monitor’s head.
The man paused for a heartbeat, then slumped over Sais.
Sais struggled out from under the monitor, onto all fours, then into a sitting position. He looked up at Einon. ‘I was wondering what happened to that drink,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Are you all right?’
Einon, not trusting himself to speak yet, nodded. Then he staggered over and yanked the bell-rope.
This place was full of surprises, Sais decided, and most of them were nasty. Within moments of Einon calling for help, the priest’s rooms were swarming with servants and guards. Sais, his limbs quivering and his temples throbbing, took the opportunity to slip away and wobbled his way back to his own rooms.
He lay on his bed, willing himself calm, trying to drive the madness of the fight from his head. He had no idea who the attacker was or why he had tried to kill Einon, and right now, he didn’t care.
That unpleasant little interlude had interrupted him as he’d been coming to terms with the first real clue to his past. The therapy had been a success, with both his fears - of nightmares, and of saying the wrong thing to Einon - happily proving to be unfounded.
He’d done as Einon instructed: he’d visualised a room he’d slept in as a child. Even as he’d reached backwards under Einon’s gentle guidance, part of him felt uneasy, aware that he was venturing beyond the veil of his amnesia - but the main part of his mind, relaxed in the trance, just did as the priest asked. The recollection had the garish clarity of a child’s memory: a bright, spacious room full of unknown items, nothing he’d yet come across here. The quality of light was similar to that given off by Einon’s lantern. He couldn’t pin down details like the name or function of the items, only a feel for what they had meant to him: how he enjoyed playing with this toy, his preference for that item of clothing, the physical sensation of sitting in this particular chair. He did recall a window; unlike the narrow unglazed windows with their wooden shutters he’d seen so far here, this was a huge, single piece of glass, keeping out the pounding rain. Though whatever lay on the other side held little interest for his childhood self, he thought it might be significant to him now.
